Rating: 
Summary: That OCTOPOD monster is so FUN
Review: That screaming OCTOPOD monster that is just so fake looking is worth the price alone. SPACE 1999 seemed to have an absolute fascination with one-eyed monsters. Several of the shows episodes that feature scary aliens featured scary one-eyed aliens that were truly horrific. This show is so gloomy and horrifying in so many episodes that it is really unique.
Rating:
Summary: Best of SF-TV
Review: The episodes toward the end of the first season are far more impressive in concept and practice than the ones in the earlier part of Space: 1999's premiere year. Three of the episodes in this DVD set are bona fide all-time classics of the SF-TV genre. Although the monster in "Dragon's Domain" seldom moves from beyond a doorway, its disgusting appearance, blood-curdling scream, beastly tentacles, and ghoulish "table manners" lift this already sublime episode (one from whom the Alien/Aliens films borrowed much) to heights unexcelled of sci-fi/horror. It's an episode with tender characterization, close friendship, a message about man's inclination to disbelieve that which he cannot accept, some stunning set design and model work, and a riveting guest performance by Gianni Garko as a man haunted for years by the memory of an encounter with the ghastly creature. "The Troubled Spirit" is another compelling tale in the same vein, a story of futuristic terror as Alpha is stalked by a murderous spirit, the ghost of a living man, half of its face scarred into a hideous mess that makes the disfigured protagonist in The Projected Man look like a beauty queen. The eerie feel of the Hydroponic Area in which a plant communication experiment summons the spirit and a thought-provoking self-fulfilling-prophecy ending texture this episode even more. "The Infernal Machine" is a tension-filled hour in which Koenig, Helena, and Bergman are trapped inside a mentally unstable, spacious computer spaceship, and highlighted by some excellent space battle sequences and Leo McKern's distinctive boom of a voice.The other three episodes in this DVD set aren't quite as successful. "Mission of the Darians" is marred by some shaky sets and a plotline more suited to a mediocre Doctor Who serial but has an exquisite piece of model work in the enormous S.S. Daria and Joan Collins at the pinnacle of her allure as a sexy Darian scientist with a horrifying secret. "The Testament of Arkadia" is a heavy-handed deux ex machina story with some attrocious acting by its Italian guest star and an unbelievably dogmatic quasi-Biblical tone yet has some quite nice touches in the depiction of a devastated but dormant planet. And "Space Brain", though a childhood favorite, fails to hold up today with its lame dialog and killer foam hokum. Whatever the shortcomings of these episodes, the three superior ones are stupendous entertainment and are more than worth the cost of these DVDs. The unjustly downtrodden second season is reported to be coming next year, and I look forward to it as well, because apart from one or two embarrassing entries, it too is an exciting and worthy work of science fiction for TV, and these late first season stories set the tone for the driving and far-out weirdness of much of the second season's imaginative episodes.
Rating: 
Summary: Space: 1999's Writers Keep On Dropping Acid...Until Season 2
Review: The fourth and final volume of the first season episodes (A&E has confirmed it will release the entire second season on DVD as well) continues the trippy trek across the stars for the beleaguered Moonbase Alpha; it also signals the end of the metaphysical, drug-inspired plots, impressive special effects and most of the cast. Martin Landau's John Koenig continues to bark and grimace, Barbara Bain sustains her zombie impersonation and Barry Morse maintains the only likeable character, Professor Victor Bergman. Episodes like "The Troubled Spirit" and "The Testament of Arkadia" continue denying scientific reasoning, but the series' writers never cared about plausibility anyway, so why continue to bluster about inaccuracies? Much of Space:1999's weird plots would turn into just plain silly plots when its second season premiered. Bergman and the entire cast, save for Landau and Bain, would be dumped for Maya, the alien with the cool sideburns and Tony Verdeshi, Koenig's number one. The special effects wouldn't be, well, as special in the second season and the Main Mission set is replaced with a cheap-looking, multi-light-blinking Command Center(but those jackets everybody wears are retro cool). Oh well. At least Landau SMILES in the second season (When Space: 1999 aired in Canada in the early-mid Nineties, the second season prints looked murky, not as clean looking as season one-- I hope the future DVDs will rectify the problem). Regardless if you prefer season one's metaphysical pondering or season two's more traditional sci-fi adventure, Space: 1999 is pure kitsch and a delight to watch all over again on DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Space: 1999's Writers Keep On Dropping Acid...Until Season 2
Review: The fourth and final volume of the first season episodes (A&E has confirmed it will release the entire second season on DVD as well) continues the trippy trek across the stars for the beleaguered Moonbase Alpha; it also signals the end of the metaphysical, drug-inspired plots, impressive special effects and most of the cast. Martin Landau's John Koenig continues to bark and grimace, Barbara Bain sustains her zombie impersonation and Barry Morse maintains the only likeable character, Professor Victor Bergman. Episodes like "The Troubled Spirit" and "The Testament of Arkadia" continue denying scientific reasoning, but the series' writers never cared about plausibility anyway, so why continue to bluster about inaccuracies? Much of Space:1999's weird plots would turn into just plain silly plots when its second season premiered. Bergman and the entire cast, save for Landau and Bain, would be dumped for Maya, the alien with the cool sideburns and Tony Verdeshi, Koenig's number one. The special effects wouldn't be, well, as special in the second season and the Main Mission set is replaced with a cheap-looking, multi-light-blinking Command Center(but those jackets everybody wears are retro cool). Oh well. At least Landau SMILES in the second season (When Space: 1999 aired in Canada in the early-mid Nineties, the second season prints looked murky, not as clean looking as season one-- I hope the future DVDs will rectify the problem). Regardless if you prefer season one's metaphysical pondering or season two's more traditional sci-fi adventure, Space: 1999 is pure kitsch and a delight to watch all over again on DVD.
Rating:
Summary: A truly unique science fiction series!
Review: This DVD completes the 24 episodes which made up the first season of "Space 1999", the much-underrated sci-fi classic which was produced in England and which aired on American television in the mid-seventies. If you're already a fan of "Space 1999" you don't need to be "sold" on this show, but if you're a sci-fi fan who's never seen this series, but who has grown tired of the bland fare that's being offered on most sci-fi shows these days, then you'll find "Space 1999" to be a delightfully different and creative show. This DVD set contains three rather mediocre episodes, two superior episodes, and one episode which ranks as one of the best (and most memorable) episodes shown on any sci-fi series. The two superior episodes are "The Troubled Spirit", a truly frightening story in which one of Moonbase Alpha's scientists conducts an experiment that goes horribly wrong. In effect, the scientist creates a ghastly-looking "ghost" of himself which goes around murdering other crewmen. Eventually the scientist must track down his own "ghost" and destroy it. Like many of "Space 1999's" episodes, "The Troubled Spirit" draws as much from the horror genre as sci-fi, and the episode uses vivid lighting and colors to create a creepy, moody feel that's not unlike the "X-Files". In the "Infernal Machine" a huge spaceship lands near Moonbase Alpha. When Commander Koenig and Dr. Helena Russell go out to investigate, they find that the ship is actually a powerful, psychotic computer which is desperate for human companionship - and is willing to destroy Moonbase Alpha unless it's demands are met. The interior set of the spaceship is impressively done (as is typical on "Space 1999" - a fortune was spent on large, elaborate sets), and the computer is both sinister and sympathetic at the same time - not unlike the "HAL 9000" computer on "2001: A Space Odyssey". The best episode, however, is "Dragon's Domain", and for many people my age it caused some serious nightmares when we saw this episode as kids. One of Commander Koenig's best friends - a former astronaut on deep-space missions - is behaving strangely. He keeps having nightmares of a disastrous deep-space mission he led years earlier. He was the mission's only survivor, and no one except Koenig believed his story of what happened. To wit: he claimed that his ship found a "space graveyard" of seemingly empty alien spaceships. When he docked with one of these ships and boarded it, his entire crew was eaten alive by a horrific space monster which was immune to fire from his laser pistol. He barely escaped with his life. Now he's convinced that Moonbase Alpha is coming close to the graveyard of dead alien ships, and when the "graveyard" does in fact appear, he steals an Eagle spacecraft and returns to his ship, determined to kill the "monster" which has been giving him nightmares since his crew was lost. The actor who portrays the stricken astronaut does a superb job, and although the monster costume may look fake today, it was enough to scare the wits out of many younger sci-fi fans and make this episode one of the most memorable in sci-fi history. All in all, this fourth DVD set is not the best (I believe the first and third DVD sets contain more "superior" episodes), but for any fan of classic sci-fi this is still one DVD set that you don't need to be without. As with the other "Space 1999" DVD sets, these episodes (and especially "Dragon's Domain") will bring back many fond childhood memories of a series that remains unique - a cross between Star Trek, The X-Files, and The Twilight Zone.
Rating:
Summary: A truly unique science fiction series!
Review: This DVD completes the 24 episodes which made up the first season of "Space 1999", the much-underrated sci-fi classic which was produced in England and which aired on American television in the mid-seventies. If you're already a fan of "Space 1999" you don't need to be "sold" on this show, but if you're a sci-fi fan who's never seen this series, but who has grown tired of the bland fare that's being offered on most sci-fi shows these days, then you'll find "Space 1999" to be a delightfully different and creative show. This DVD set contains three rather mediocre episodes, two superior episodes, and one episode which ranks as one of the best (and most memorable) episodes shown on any sci-fi series. The two superior episodes are "The Troubled Spirit", a truly frightening story in which one of Moonbase Alpha's scientists conducts an experiment that goes horribly wrong. In effect, the scientist creates a ghastly-looking "ghost" of himself which goes around murdering other crewmen. Eventually the scientist must track down his own "ghost" and destroy it. Like many of "Space 1999's" episodes, "The Troubled Spirit" draws as much from the horror genre as sci-fi, and the episode uses vivid lighting and colors to create a creepy, moody feel that's not unlike the "X-Files". In the "Infernal Machine" a huge spaceship lands near Moonbase Alpha. When Commander Koenig and Dr. Helena Russell go out to investigate, they find that the ship is actually a powerful, psychotic computer which is desperate for human companionship - and is willing to destroy Moonbase Alpha unless it's demands are met. The interior set of the spaceship is impressively done (as is typical on "Space 1999" - a fortune was spent on large, elaborate sets), and the computer is both sinister and sympathetic at the same time - not unlike the "HAL 9000" computer on "2001: A Space Odyssey". The best episode, however, is "Dragon's Domain", and for many people my age it caused some serious nightmares when we saw this episode as kids. One of Commander Koenig's best friends - a former astronaut on deep-space missions - is behaving strangely. He keeps having nightmares of a disastrous deep-space mission he led years earlier. He was the mission's only survivor, and no one except Koenig believed his story of what happened. To wit: he claimed that his ship found a "space graveyard" of seemingly empty alien spaceships. When he docked with one of these ships and boarded it, his entire crew was eaten alive by a horrific space monster which was immune to fire from his laser pistol. He barely escaped with his life. Now he's convinced that Moonbase Alpha is coming close to the graveyard of dead alien ships, and when the "graveyard" does in fact appear, he steals an Eagle spacecraft and returns to his ship, determined to kill the "monster" which has been giving him nightmares since his crew was lost. The actor who portrays the stricken astronaut does a superb job, and although the monster costume may look fake today, it was enough to scare the wits out of many younger sci-fi fans and make this episode one of the most memorable in sci-fi history. All in all, this fourth DVD set is not the best (I believe the first and third DVD sets contain more "superior" episodes), but for any fan of classic sci-fi this is still one DVD set that you don't need to be without. As with the other "Space 1999" DVD sets, these episodes (and especially "Dragon's Domain") will bring back many fond childhood memories of a series that remains unique - a cross between Star Trek, The X-Files, and The Twilight Zone.
Rating:
Summary: Alien Man-Eating Octopus, Ghost of a Living Man, and More!
Review: This DVD release will include episodes 19-24 of the series and completes the first season on DVD. It will contain the most memorable and popular episode of Space: 1999, that with the giant, one-eyed, people-eating alien octopus! Plus several other classics! First is "The Troubled Spirit", in which an Alphan botanist is haunted by his own ghost, scarred and twisted into a horrific apparition. Then comes the famous foam episode, "Space Brain", followed by Leo McKern's poignant portrayal of an ancient alien scientist who programmed his personality- and voice- into an egotistical talking spaceship, "The Infernal Machine". Joan Collins is the guest star of "Mission of the Darians", the story of the Alphans' boarding of a gigantic, crippled spaceark carring refugees from a dying planet. Then comes the aforementioned episode with the ghastly tentacled, alien carnivore, "Dragon's Domain", followed by the concluding episode of Season One, "The Testament of Arkadia", in which the Alphans make a startling discovery about the heritage of Earthman. Most of the episodes in this collection are even more gripping and memorable than those in Sets 1 and 2. This is the DVD release of the summer for all fans of classic science fiction on television!
Rating:
Summary: Bridge to the Second Season
Review: This DVD will contain one of my all-time favorite episodes of Space: 1999, "Dragon's Domain", whose hideous octopod space monster frightened the wits out of me and several of my friends who also beheld this episode here in Canada in 1977. Other reasons why this episode was so striking were the relationship between Koenig and Russell, more outwardly affectionate and a precursor to the fully blossomed romance between them in Year 2, and the wearing of anoraks as seen frequently in the second season. I hope that the success of these DVDs will guarantee a FULL release of Year 2 as well, as that was the season that pulled me and my friends into the fantastic future of Space: 1999, bonded us to the characters of Koenig and Russell, and impressed upon us the boundlessness of space and its potential life forms. Bring on "Dragon's Domain" and ALL of Year 2 and the mantra that should be tagged to these: "If we think we know everything that goes on out there, we're making a terrible mistake." -John Koenig, "Dragon's Domain"
Rating:
Summary: Far Out-Far Ahead Of Its Time!
Review: This is like a childhood dream come true-Space 1999 is back! Space 1999 is the trippiest sci-fi show of all time and can only be compared to the great 2001! Many of the episodes seemed like bad acid trips ,espicially the Gurdian of Piri. When space 1999 came out it was a big hit and got endorsments from big name scientists. Everything about the show looked and seemed real from the unisex costumes that the Star Trek movie would copy 3 years later to the realistic looking spaceships and hardware.Even life in space was portrayed realisticly, mentioning issues such as recycling in a limited enviroment and convincing low gravity effects. In this set we have a weird ghost story set in a creepy haunted greenhouse,The Troubled Spirit. Mission of the Darians , a survival story with huge creepy sets and Joan Collins!! Dragons' Domain is about a terrible monster lurking in a graveyard of spaceships, a galactic Bermuda Triangle.The story will be familiar to fans of the first three Alien films. The last episode The Testament of Arkadia is the conclusion to the first year-the secrete behind the Alphans' voyage is revealed. During the second year things get even weirder as Maya the shape shifter comes to live on Alpha.Second year producer Fred Freiberger also Star Treks producer, created this character based on greek mythology. Maya was unique in sci-fi, she cold transform herself in the blink of an eye, into any living creature. The editing to do this was very creative since they did not have computers back then. Maya turned out to be so innovative 15 years later 2 sci-fi shows would copy her. Hurry up A anmd E we want our Maya!!
Rating: 
Summary: Top of the line
Review: This is my favorite set of the entire series. Volume seven is good, but volume eight has some of the best episodes of the series. I love the first season, but I always wished the characters could have evolved more. It always seemed like we would have an episode where characters would show some life, but then that life would gone in the next episode. Here is my breakdown of the episodes on this set.
The troubled spirit- Another one of those episodes about some kind of possession that causes an Alphan to go off or at least a part of them goes off and terrorizes the base. This is one of those gothic horrors set in space that Space 1999 could do so very well. This episode is predictable, but well paced and interesting.
Space brain- Yeah, I know, everyone is walking through soap suds pretending they are being attacked by an alien entity. If you can look past the suds then it really is a fair episode.
Infernal machine- An immensely powerful machine loses it's companion and now it needs another. A bit slow at first, but it eventually develops into a very strong episode.
Now we come to the final three episodes of season one and all three of these would be in my top five favorite episodes of the entire show.
Mission of the Darians- The Alphans discover a huge spaceship and we discover cannibalism, sacrifices, false gods and two entirely different societies living on the same ship. Joan Collins is perfect as Kara, an arrogant member of the dominating society of the ship. This episode is solid from start to finish. Not entirely original, but a fine story with some good performances. This episode is maybe more of a standard Space 1999 episode than the last two and I love some of the sets in this episode.
Dragon's domain- Often considered to be the best episode of the series, and I believe that title should go to either this episode or Black sun. That may be a bit hard to believe when you consider the main character is not a regular and that the bulk of the story is told through flashbacks. Tony Cellini swears a monster killed the rest of the crew of a mission he was on and now he feels the monster has returned and he must confront it. Great story, very grim at times with solid performances from all involved.
Testement of arkadia- The first season comes to a close with an episode that like Dragon's domain seems very different from the rest of the season, but it is still one of the best. Alpha is drawn to a planet and the base is losing power. On the planet, they discover links that indicate that humans may have come from this planet and two crewmembers believe this is where they should settle. We have an episode where crewmembers are creating a problem, but becuase they felt it is their fate rather than the usual plot where we crewmembers are driven by possession of alien force. We have the absense of any tangible alien force, some different music and even some voice over by Koenig all of these things give this episode very different, but almost stylish feel. It's much more a thinking episode than a visual episode.
And so the first season comes to an end and makes me wish we could have had a second season that picked where this one ended and then season two may have been great. Instead ratings were not good enough and the Andersons got divorced. The only way to get a second season was to hand the reins over to Fred Freiberger and he had to promise a number of changes that he thought could help the ratings. Paul, Kano and Victor (my favorite) were all gone (without explanation) and they were replaced my Maya and Tony. Uniforms, the theme an main mission were changed. Helena and Koenig's relationship jumped ahead several notches and the whole feel of the show changed. Sandra only appeared ina few episodes, Alan was never quite the same and most of the other secondary characters would change every couple of episodes. It did have it's share of good episodes, but season one ruled.
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